 Live from Denver, Colorado. It's theCUBE, covering Commvault Go 2019. Brought to you by Commvault. Welcome to theCUBE, Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman. Live on day one of Commvault Go 19, we're in Colorado this year and we're excited to welcome to theCUBE for the first time we have Matt Shia, VP of Strategic Pricing at Commvault. Matt, welcome. Thank you, thanks for having me here. So lots of news coming out yesterday and today. You know, in the last, because Stu and I have had a number of conversations today already about just how much evolution has happened with Commvault in this calendar year alone. Analysts came in, you know, when Sanjay took over and said Commvault, you've got to upgrade your sales force. We've seen the sales leadership changes. They said, in hands your marketing, we've seen new routes to market, partner focus, expansion into, you know, really expanding the TAM with a head big acquisition. Talk to us a little bit about from, you know, a pricing perspective, a strategic perspective. What are you guys doing? What's new this year that you guys are really saying, hey, we're listening to our customers. We're listening to our partners. So there's two parts to it. The first is really just making things simpler and easier for everybody. So we started that journey last year. Sanjay came in and said, keep it going. So we need to continue the go to market simplification, make it easier for people. So we've tried to do that as much as possible. We're going to continue to do that, whether it's packaging related, pricing related, make it quicker for customers and partners to get access to the software. The second part to that is when we release new products, like Activate, we've talked a lot about Activate over the last couple of days. We have new packaging for that, which is exciting, but we need to make sure that's accessible. So making that easy for our partners to get to it, cross selling and upselling, that kind of thing for everybody to have access to. So that's really the direction that we've gotten from Sanjay. And as we get into the future, it's continuing that with things like HeadVig and Metallic and all that. So anything particular about Activate, what differentiates how that's priced in package versus how Commvault might have done stuff in the back? It's the granularity of it is what it is. So Commvault, one of the great things that we can do here is we can be flexible. And Sanjay talked a lot about that in his main stage presentation this morning, and we can give a customer the ability to do what they want and when they want and how they want. So they've purchased from Commvault in the past likely, they have different routes that they've bought from and Activate gives them the ability to buy in that same manner. So it's granular, gives them the ability to get software when they need it, the type of software they need, but in the manner they want to buy it as well. So that's the exciting part of it. So we had a chat with Rob earlier talking about Metallic and how that SaaS product was put together. Well, customers have a lot of experience now with SaaS. So tell us from a pricing and packaging standpoint, your involvement and what customers are going to see when it comes to Metallic. Yes, we're directly involved with the pricing. We wanted to make sure that it aligns with everything we stand for as a pricing organization at Commvault. And I'm excited about it because we've never really had a straight SaaS product that's like, go to the website, get the price, download it, good to go. It's exciting, I can't wait to have it out there. I can't wait for customers to go get it and download it. The booth has been really, really slammed today from what I've heard. So I'm excited about the pricing. All right, and there's a couple of different pricing models depending on how they're doing. Maybe you could walk us through that. Yeah, sure. So you have three different options that you can buy, each one gives you a different use case. So you have backup endpoint, mailbox, all that, 0365. Different things you can buy. They all start at one particular price point. They're tiered, so the bigger you get, the more of a discount you get. The other cool thing that we can do here, because we do different use cases, which is sometimes different than competitors, is that you get a family discount with Commvault. So if you buy one and you get to a high enough level, you can go into another one and into another one and get that same discount. So we're really trying to get customers to use as much as they can, get them accessible, and we hope they like it. Where were customers in terms of when this was being conceived? Just not just metallic from a product and a technology perspective, but from a consumption, subscription perspective. Were they actively, I would imagine, certain customers, like maybe part of an advisory board, helping you guys determine, this is kind of a new direction for Commvault, where they talked to us about the influence that some of these key customers had, and really enabling this pricing to be so transparent. We had, it wasn't even just customers, there was a lot of people who had influence into this. So industry influencers, financial influence, a lot of people had a lot of influence and a lot of input into how we do it, because obviously everybody has a way that they like to buy. Customers had a big input, because as we started this, one of the first things we came through was, how do we make sure that the packaging looks good? And that was one of the first core deliverables, because everything sort of runs off that. Make sure that it looks right, make sure it's accessible to customers, and easy. So that was one of the first things we did was go out, surveys, customer surveys, input, data points, all that really started the process. All right, and metallic is 100% through the channel, so tell us a little bit about, how that works for SaaS offering. Yeah, so through the channel, for us it's going to be fantastic, because we want to make sure that our partners can sell it to folks. That was one of the biggest things our customers came back with was, we like to buy through our partner. We don't want to have to go do a whole bunch of different things. So great, you should go out and buy from your partner, they have access to it, it's easy to understand, it's easy to price, easy to package, and there really shouldn't be a whole lot of worrying about it from a customer standpoint. Quick and painless. Yeah, and the other thing, I understand if it's core, it's by capacity, if it's the 0365 or endpoint, it's based on your number of users, there's that piece in there that if I have my own cloud storage, I can leverage that. So is that just a different pricing? Because I didn't see that piece on the website, how does that impact things? Yeah, so it really, it's about flexibility. Like if you want to use ours, you can, and that's fine. If you have your own and you want to go use that, that's fine too. Like we're not really, we don't want to lock anybody into something that they may not need or want. So if you already have a contract with one of the cloud providers, you're free to go and use that, and we're not going to worry about it. If you want to go do it through us, and that's great. We'll work with you on that. So Metallic focused on the mid-market, but Commvault has a really good percentage of revenue that comes from large global enterprise accounts. You guys have made some leadership changes there, new initiatives on these large global enterprises, and some that are going to be fulfilled and delivered exclusively through, I think, global systems integrators. We do have a GSI program. So talk to us about that from a strategic perspective, knowing so much business comes through the channel for those really large enterprise accounts. What's that strategic pricing, conversation, concept all about? Yes, so that one's a little bit different. We have so many different things that we do. We have Metallic, we have the HeadVig, obviously, that we just acquired. We have Commvault Complete and all the different things we do. So from an enterprise standpoint, it's how do we get the right go-to-market for them, which is potentially a systems integrator. If they go that route, larger partners, potentially some of our alliance partners are key to that as well. And then there's the how do we make it easy for them to buy all of that technology in one so that they don't have to have five different things that they're buying from Commvault. So that is the roadmap discussion. So how do we get from here to there and make sure that they have easy access to that? So that's part of the conversation we're having now. But it's the first thing that's on my mind every morning and my team works on it every day. So as we integrate HeadVig, as Metallic comes into market, obviously we have appliances and different routes there. Those all have to be easy. So if you're a customer and you want to buy five of them, it's like quick and painless for you to buy all five and it's an easy model for an enterprise. So that's how we like that to go. How does it work? Say let's look at the HeadVig acquisition as an example. They came in bringing customers, they announced the acquisition in September, it's closed, they're already working on integrations. Talk to us a little bit about from a strategic perspective, when there's an acquisition, there's customers that are on certain, they've got certain contracts. How do you take all of that past experience from the incoming company and start kind of massaging those pricing the structure to now fit and be delivered through a Commvault? Yeah, it's a great question. It's one of the things that we're starting to work on now, which is how do we take all those different price points and packaging and work them in? We've done a little bit of it, so we've integrated what HeadVig has into our portfolio in terms of it's there through Commvault, so they're the same PS, the same support, the same maintenance, the same everything in that respect, which is great. They're going to align to Commvault in that way, but really the next step is going to be exactly what you said, which is how do we put those two together? So we don't want to keep them apart, we don't want to, you can buy HeadVig and then you can buy Commvault, we want them to be the same. And so the long-term vision for that will be to do that. We haven't gotten there yet. That's the next plan with HeadVig integration is to take those customers and say, how did you buy it, what did you like, what didn't you like? And then we can take that feedback and really use it to package up a solution. Yeah, Matt, I'm curious how the changes in the public cloud have been impacting your line of work. For example, we watched the AWS Marketplace and they have more and more customers buying through them. Last year they came out with the, I forget what they call it, it's like the private buying so that you can even, if you have a special arrangement, you can still buy it through the AWS Marketplace. Is that, are you seeing that as a trend or customers interest in that as Commvault looking down that path? Yeah, they're interested in it and certainly will enable people to go do it. It hasn't been a huge focus yet in terms of price, right? Because a lot of things that we have that are priced are already aligned how they should be in the cloud. So when we sell something like a VM, for example, it's kind of aligned to how they buy it anyway. So we haven't seen a huge change in how people would do that. It's more as we get more into the cloud and multi-cloud with Sanjay's vision, we'll start to see some more go-to-market perspectives that are like that and the routes to market will change a little bit but we're set up for it already from a pricing standpoint so it's not going to be a big change. So as we look at the momentum that Commvault carries into their fourth annual go with how much leadership change, we talked about that, the routes to market and things, what are some of, do you think the bar has been set like, all right, we've got to figure this out, for example, the simplification of the head-veg Commvault structure, is there kind of an expectation that as fast as they're now iterating and delivering on technology, you've got to be able to do the same from a pricing standpoint? Yep, everything you need to do on technology, I need to be just as fast on pricing. Yeah, there's definitely that expectation and that's a great expectation. I mean, we can't have the technology lag, we can't have the pricing lag. It has to be, it has to go at the same time so we're tight with all the folks that were doing the head-veg integration, making sure that we're aligned to it, there's absolutely that expectation, but I love that expectation because we have to get it out at the same time and that's great. It does, well it makes things interesting and exciting but customers are demanding this transparency because if we think about it in our consumer lives, we have transparency, I mean, think about buying a car these days, as the consumer, you're so empowered with whatever you want to buy and there's this expectation as an IT buyer that they have the same type of transparency and the same type of simplified pricing structure. So you've got to be able to deliver to meet that too, right? We do and there's no black box anymore. Like when I first started doing this a long time ago it was like, here's a product, here's a black box, here's, you'll buy it from your partner. That's gone, like they need to know exactly what goes into that. So transparency, we talk a lot about it from a pricing standpoint, it used to be like, don't talk about pricing, right? Because nobody should really know what happens in there, everybody knows what happens in there now and they should, I mean, it's their money so we need to make sure that they understand how they're spending it, why they should be spending it with one vendor versus another and then what's going to be good for them in the long term. So we talk a lot about that from a strategy standpoint. Well, that's actually something that could be a competitive differentiator for Commvault, right? Compare if there are others who are saying, you know, secret sauce, talk to sales, that can be, with how quickly things change and move these days, that transparency can be a real game changer in the customer's experience. It can be and one of the, so I came from a background of competitive intelligence when I did, I worked at a firm for a long time in CI and so I was told by my boss at the time, he said, don't be the department of rah-rah, be the department of facts, all right? And so as a pricing person, it's the department of facts. I'll tell you as a customer, this is good, this is coming, this is where we are now, all that stuff and it's up to you to make a decision. Like it's, you know, it's there, the facts are there, the pricing we think is structured in a way that helps you and supports you but you're free to make a decision. I don't want to force anything on you and so that's for me and my group, that's where our transparency kind of lives is we know customers have to buy, we know they have options, they're not always going to choose Commvault, we like them to, but they're not going to. And we just try to make that as easy as possible and make it a painless solution, all right? Easy and painless, I'll take it. Matt, thank you for joining Stu and me and talking to us about what you're doing and how quickly things are iterating all the way from the technologies to the pricing structure, we appreciate your time. Anytime, thanks for having me. All right, first Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching theCUBE from Commvault Go 19.